


Old College Try

by bloodstonepentagram



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: First Time, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 20:37:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4033753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodstonepentagram/pseuds/bloodstonepentagram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watanuki is stuck in the shop, and Doumeki is doing whatever he can. Their relationship isn't always easy, but Doumeki thinks it's worth it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old College Try

**Author's Note:**

> This has like zero plot I'm so sorry. I just wanted to make Doumeki's life less sad and I started stringing short scenes together.
> 
> Edit I was planning a second chapter but I honestly think this one stands alone well so this is a oneshot now.
> 
> Title from the Mountain Goats song Old College Try  
>  _I will walk down to the end with you if you will come all the way down with me_

The folklore department at the university was fairly small, and it was only a matter of time until most of the students ended up knowing each other pretty well. After a while even a perpetual stone wall like Doumeki couldn’t help but end up being on decent terms with most of his classmates.  
At the moment, three of them had invited Doumeki to eat lunch with them outside. Since he hadn’t been particularly busy he’d agreed, even though eating lunch outside between classes was more often than not a bittersweet reminder that Watanuki and Himawari weren’t there to eat with him anymore.  
So he sat with them and pulled out the lunch box Watanuki had made him and ate quietly while they talked. Doumeki mostly focused on eating, but was dimly aware of the conversation going on around him. They were talking about girls. It wasn’t particularly interesting.  
Plus, his food tasted amazing. Usually when Watanuki made him lunch anymore (that is, on the few nights a week Doumeki stayed the night in the shop), he would just use leftovers from last night’s dinner. It was always good, but it wasn’t the same as those rare occasions when Watanuki woke up early and in a good mood and made something fresh.  
In between bites of noodles and pork, though, he became distantly aware that the others were trying to involve him in the conversation.  
“Hm?” he said, looking up.  
“Spacing out, Doumeki?” said one of them. “We’re putting together a group date and we have one extra girl, so we need one more guy. You interested?”  
“Oh.” Doumeki turned back to his food. “No.”  
There was a collective “Aw!” from the group.  
“Why not?”  
Well, there was no need to lie. “I’m already involved with someone.” That was probably the understatement of the year.  
They looked at each other and then at him, evidently surprised.  
“I had no idea.”  
“Well, Doumeki is a pretty private person…”  
“Ah, is she the one who always makes your lunches, then?”  
“Yeah.” No actual need to correct them on the gender of his love interest. They would most likely never meet Watanuki anyway, so he could let them think whatever they wanted.  
“Is she a student? Does she go here?”  
“No,” Doumeki said. “Not a student.”  
“Does she have a job then?”  
“Yeah. Runs a shop.”  
“Really?”  
“Is she much older than you, Doumeki?”  
“No. About the same age. The shop was inherited from its previous owner. She died.”  
They stayed on this subject for a little longer. Apparently Doumeki’s personal life was of some interest, given that he didn’t talk about himself very much. Eventually though the topic drifted away, though. Doumeki was glad. Talking about Watanuki to outsiders was strange. Honestly, even though he knew it was impossible, he kind of wished these guys could meet Watanuki. He thought that they would like him.

He went to the shop again that evening.  
“What, you again?” Watanuki said when he walked into the the main room, Maru hanging from one arm and Moro from the other.  
“I brought fish,” Doumeki said, proffering the grocery bag with the Moro arm, causing her to giggle and swing on it a little.  
Watanuki raised an eyebrow as he rose to take it. Doumeki was sure that he was being totally transparent, but he couldn’t help it. He missed Watanuki more than usual lately, especially today with what had happened at lunch.  
After dinner Doumeki softly asked Watanuki if it was alright if he stayed overnight again, and Watanuki griped about Doumeki intruding on his hospitality, which was his way of saying yes, because if he meant no he would say it outright, most likely with a reason why not.  
Maru, Moro and Mokona knew that when Doumeki stayed over he and Watanuki needed privacy (and Mokona at least had the common sense and decency not to explain exactly _why_ to the children). So, after things were cleared up from dinner, Watanuki and Doumeki were able to retreat to Watanuki’s room to be alone.  
As Doumeki silently pinned Watanuki to the futon and kissed his neck Watanuki huffed a little sigh and said, “What’s gotten into you lately?”  
“Miss you,” Doumeki muttered, feeling pathetic.  
“I don’t see how. You’re here every day.”  
He still wrapped his arms around Doumeki though, pulling him closer, letting him feel his warm chest and the reassuring gentle thump of his pulse. He was so thin and seemed so frail, but he had a warm, solid core that reassured Doumeki, even while it scared him. Watanuki would endure. He would endure for as long as he had to, no matter how much it hurt him.  
Doumeki pressed Watanuki into the futon and kissed his lips to stop himself from thinking about it any more.  
Watanuki, as usual, accepted Doumeki’s silence, reaching out his long, thin fingers to unbutton Doumeki’s shirt without saying another word.

xxx  
It hadn’t always been like this. When Doumeki had first started spending time with Watanuki it had purely been out of pity and the vague thought that he didn’t want to watch the guy get himself killed.  
Of course, the more he spent time with Watanuki, the better he got to know him. He saw Watanuki’s kindness. His desire to help others. Before too long Doumeki realized he didn’t just pity Watanuki. He admired him.  
He didn’t remember the first time he noticed that Watanuki was attractive. He had probably always thought it on some level. It was just that the more he liked Watanuki as a person, the clearer it became that he was attracted to him. Honestly, it had always been too late for him. Yuuko probably would have called it histsuzen. Doumeki didn’t know about that, but he didn’t know anything else to call it.  
But he’d always known, deep down, that Watanuki would never feel the same way about him. Watanuki might not hate him as much as he let on, but there was no way he was interested in Doumeki in any of the ways Doumeki was interested in him. And even if he had been, he had changed things when he had taken over the shop, and Doumeki didn’t even know how things could work out between them now. Much as he wanted them to.  
He forced himself to ignore his feelings. Because Watanuki still needed Doumeki. He needed his friendship. He needed someone to come over and see him every so often, to bring him groceries, to talk to him and irritate him and bring him news of the outside world. Someone to keep him grounded and human.  
Doumeki knew that it would never happen. Which was why the first move could only have been made by Watanuki.

It was a nice, clear night, and Watanuki and Doumeki sat out on the porch with some drinks to stargaze.  
Nice as it was, Doumeki couldn’t help but glance at Watanuki every so often, frowning a little. Watanuki had been acting strangely all day, and Doumeki couldn’t figure out why.  
Watanuki tapped the head of his pipe lightly against his thigh.  
There, there it was again. Watanuki was fidgeting. And not in his normal way either. He was nervous about something. He’d been avoiding Doumeki’s eyes all day, too.  
“Oi,” said Doumeki. “You’re acting weird.”  
Watanuki started a little. Doumeki expected him to get prickly, then, like he usually would, but instead he bit his lip a little, looked away for an instant.  
Oh, god.  
Doumeki grabbed his shoulder, trying to get Watanuki to look at him. “What is it?” Was he dying? Could he die? He was the shopkeeper, but then again, that had hardly stopped Yuuko, had it?  
“Hey, cut it out!” Watanuki waved him away. He took a beat, taking a long, slow drag of his pipe, letting out the smoke in a slow, curling stream.  
Doumeki waited impatiently, digging his fists into his legs, probably wrinkling the hell out of his pants.  
“I had a customer today,” Watanuki began.  
Doumeki frowned. Watanuki hardly ever talked to him about his customers.  
“Her wish…was to send a message to the spirit of a recently departed loved one. It was an old friend she’d known for years, who had just died suddenly. The friend had helped her through some difficult times and she had never taken the time to thank her…”  
Doumeki tried to crane his neck to look at Watanuki’s face while being subtle about it because if this was going where it seemed to be going, he had a years-long unfulfilled mission.  
“She looked so regretful,” Watanuki said softly.  
There was a pause, in which Watanuki took another puff on his pipe and Doumeki took a sip of his drink. Watanuki blew smoke from his mouth in a short, sharp exhale, staring fixedly up at the sky.  
“Thanks,” he said, rigidly refusing to look in Doumeki’s direction while he said it.  
Doumeki did see his face, though. It was too bad he couldn’t report back to Yuuko now.  
Doumeki couldn’t really think of anything to say, so he kept quiet for a little. This turned out to be a good thing, because Watanuki wasn’t done.  
“And…” Watanuki was tense, now, his mouth pulling into kind of a weird grimace, his shoulders hunching over a little. His grip on the pipe tightened.  
Then, suddenly, he turned to Doumeki, looking annoyed. “Are you going to just sit there and stare at me with that blank expression?”  
Ah. This was more familiar territory. Doumeki shrugged.  
“Agh, it’s like talking to a brick wall! I can’t believe I was going to-“ He made a weird mouth movement like he was trying to literally bite off that sentence before the rest of it could get out.  
“Going to what?” is what Doumeki was going to say, but all he got out was “Going tmmm-“ because suddenly Watanuki leaned forward and kissed him.  
Oh.  
xxx

Doumeki didn’t see his mother often, despite still living in the same house as her. Their schedules were different, and just didn’t happen to run into each other very much. He didn’t exactly feel bad about it, although he did feel bad about not feeling bad about it.  
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see her. It was just that it got to the point where it took more effort to see her than not.  
But after Watanuki’s remarks about how often Doumeki had been visiting the shop Doumeki was a little worried about giving him space, so he was avoiding going to the shop now, and he figured having dinner with her one night would be a decent distraction.  
He didn’t know why he’d thought that.  
“Have you made any friends at school?” she asked as they were eating.  
“Yeah.” It wasn’t technically a lie, he did have people he knew and talked to and that was kind of like having friends. He felt bad about misleading her, but he didn’t want her to worry about him. She was always worrying about him.  
“Have you met anyone special?”  
She used to ask him if he’d met any girls, but one day she’d started asking this instead. Neither of them said anything, but Doumeki had quietly appreciated it.  
“No.”  
That was a lie, and Doumeki was sorry. But there was no way he could tell her about Watanuki without also having to explain why she wouldn’t be able to meet him, and he reasoned that this one small lie was easier than the long series of big ones he’d have to tell in the explaining. And he absolutely couldn’t tell her the truth. That would worry her more than anything.

xxx  
It was a month after Watanuki’s confession when they had sex for the first time. Doumeki bought a bottle of lube and a pack of condoms while he was out grocery shopping, and tucked them away in a pocket for safekeeping.  
He pulled them out when he and Watanuki were alone, showed them to him, asking with his eyes whether it was alright.  
They hadn’t talked about this, exactly. Watanuki could barely even verbally acknowledge the kissing without turning bright red. It was cute, which Doumeki brought up sometimes because that also made Watanuki turn bright red.  
But things had been heating up between them lately. Also, Watanuki had written ‘condoms’ on one of his shopping lists for Doumeki recently. And then put a line through it.  
When Watanuki saw them he did in fact turn bright red, but he nodded, and then they were kissing.

Being naked in front of Watanuki was strange. Not unpleasant. Unreal, maybe. This wasn’t something that could happen in real life. The kind of image that Doumeki relegated to his deepest, most desperately hidden fantasies.  
And yet it was real, and it was happening, and as strange as it was for Doumeki to be naked it was okay because Watanuki was, too, and he was looking at Doumeki with a shy, fond expression that Doumeki couldn’t have come up with even in his wildest dreams.  
“Are you going to just sit there and stare at me?” Watanuki asked after a little, trying to sound annoyed but actually coming off as strangely bashful, and Doumeki realized that he had gotten lost in thought.  
Wordlessly, he reached for the bottle of lube. Watanuki shifted as Doumeki opened it and squirted some out onto his fingers, and then Doumeki looked away so he could concentrate better as he reached down between his own legs.  
He had done this before, and was fairly quick about it, although he took a little extra time to stretch himself out, since he would be accommodating more this time than just his fingers.  
Then he noticed Watanuki staring at him in surprise.  
“Is this okay?” he asked, suddenly feeling unusually self-conscious.  
“Y-yeah,” Watanuki said, looking quickly down and to the side. “Yeah. I…I just thought you would want…to… I assumed…”  
Doumeki cocked his head, confused. He had assumed? Why? Because Doumeki was, what, bigger, taller, more stoic?  
He felt like the situation required him to say something. Well, honesty was the best policy. “We don’t have to do it like this if you don’t want,” he said. “But I want you inside of me.”  
Watanuki turned bright red but his cock twitched noticeably, and seeing Watanuki getting turned on by a simple sentence from Doumeki was…wow.  
“Tell me…when you’re ready…” Watanuki stammered.  
“Ready,” Doumeki said almost immediately. And oh, god, he had never been more ready for anything in his entire life.  
There was a little awkwardness at first, and a few false starts as they figured out a comfortable position. But they managed to work it out eventually. The stretching of Doumeki’s muscles burned a little, but didn’t hurt like he’d been a little afraid it might, and when he relaxed it even started to feel good. Watanuki was beautiful like this, leaning over him, moving carefully while trying, and failing, to suppress the occasionally little gasp and whimper. Any sense Doumeki might have had that this couldn’t be happening was drowned out by the pure sensation of Watanuki in an on and around him.  
“Woah, hey,” Watanuki said suddenly, stopping all movement, sounding a little panicked.  
“What? Why did you stop?” Doumeki said. Shit, had he done something wrong? Was Watanuki hurt? Had he just changed his mind?  
“Why did I stop?” Watanuki said in disbelief. “You’re crying.”  
Doumeki blinked. Put a hand to his eyes. Took it away and looked at it. Definitely wet.  
“Huh.”  
“I thought you were hurt or something.”  
“No. I’m fine.”  
“Are you sure?” Watanuki squinted at him suspiciously, like he thought he was lying or something.  
Doumeki almost called him an idiot, but he couldn’t really fault Watanuki for wanting to make sure he wasn’t hurting, even if he was being stupid about it. “I’m fine,” he said instead. “Keep going.”  
Watanuki still looked a little apprehensive.  
Ugh. He was so annoying when he was worried.  
“Come here.” He waved Watanuki toward him.  
“Wha-“  
Doumeki wrapped an arm around Watanuki’s back and pulled him closer, until their faces were almost touching. “I’m fine,” he said. And, while he had Watanuki there, he leaned forward just a little more and kissed him on the nose before releasing him.  
Watanuki was bright red. “Ah-alright, then. If you say so.”  
There were no more interruptions after that.

The morning after that first time, Doumeki woke up to Watanuki already starting to get up. Doumeki was still half-dreaming at that point, but he knew that Watanuki was warm, and he was, oh, that’s right, he was Watanuki, and he was warm, and he was moving away and Doumeki didn’t want that to happen.  
“Oh my god!” Watanuki said as Doumeki wrapped his arm around him. That wasn’t a good sound.  
Suddenly Doumeki remembered what had happened the night before. Oh. Oh no. Had Watanuki decided that he regretted it? Was he going to make Doumeki leave? Who was going to bring him groceries?  
“Let go of me if you want me to have time to make you breakfast _and_ lunch, you asshole,” Watanuki said.  
Oh. Okay. Good. Doumeki let his arm drop.  
“Honestly, you’re such an animal,” said Watanuki as he picked up his kimono from the floor and started pulling it on.  
Doumeki lay back again, putting a hand behind his head, making himself comfortable. Wow. Watanuki wasn’t freaking out at all. Watanuki was going to make him breakfast. In that instant Doumeki was so happy and contented that he almost forgot to call out some ridiculous food request at Watanuki’s retreating back.  
Almost.  
xxx

“Five days. You were gone for five days!”  
Watanuki was mad, and Doumeki didn’t understand why.  
“You complained about how much I was coming over,” Doumeki said, frowning.  
“So, what, you wanted to punish me?” He was starting to get into his angry flailing now, and if Doumeki didn’t intervene this could get out of hand fast.  
“No!” Oh god, how was this happening? “No, I…I thought you wanted me to leave you alone for a while.”  
“If I want you to leave me alone then I’ll tell you to!”  
“You tell me to constantly,” Doumeki pointed out.  
This took some of the wind out of Watanuki’s sails. “I…I thought you’d be able to tell when I meant it…” He looked a little embarrassed now.  
“Okay,” said Doumeki.  
“What?”  
“Okay. Next time I’ll know.” He said it in a complete deadpan, keeping his face completely blank and serious.  
Finally Watanuki laughed a little.  
“Come here,” he said grudgingly, holding out his arms, and Doumeki leaned into the offered hug, wrapping his arms around Watanuki’s thin body and breathing in his scent, soap and pipe smoke and the faint, lingering smell of his cooking.  
He was still so used to the way things had once been with Watanuki. Sometimes he had to remind himself that Watanuki needed him, that Watanuki cared about him, that Watanuki wanted him around and missed him when he was gone.  
Over the top of Doumeki’s head he saw Mokona leaning around the doorway. When Doumeki met his eyes Mokona grinned and winked hugely. It was a little creepy, but pretty normal for Mokona. Doumeki winked back.  
“Come on,” said Watanuki, pulling away from the hug, and Mokona disappeared around the corner. “Let’s go inside.”  
“Welcome home, Doumeki!” Maru, Moro and Mokona chorused as they walked together into the doorway of the shop.

They sat out on the porch together again that night, and it reminded Doumeki of the first time they’d kissed.  
“What’s gotten into you lately?” Watanuki asked, voice cutting into the calm silence.  
“What?”  
“You know. Being here constantly and then suddenly disappearing. What’s your problem?”  
He tried to sound annoyed, but he didn’t quite manage.  
Doumeki thought about that for a minute. How could he explain? He was lonely all the time. He worried about Watanuki, who could never be a normal person. He lived a split life where he couldn’t share the person he cared about more than anyone else with his own mother, let alone people he saw every day. All that, and sometimes he wasn’t even sure that he believed that Watanuki really liked him or wanted to see him at all.  
Doumeki had never been good at voicing his feelings. And this was too many feelings all at once, some impossible knot that it would take a diagram for him to work out for himself, let alone describe to someone else.  
“I dunno,” he said instead.  
Watanuki sighed. “Look…” He was tapping the pipe against his thigh, and Doumeki was reminded again of before. “I know it can’t be easy,” he said. “All this.” He waved an arm around vaguely. “And…you aren’t obligated. To keep doing this. I can’t make you.”  
He was looking away but Doumeki could still see his face. He looked ready to cry.  
“So,” Watanuki continued, “if you don’t… If it’s too-”  
He didn’t get to finish, because Doumeki was wrapping his arms around Watanuki. Not a kiss, not even a proper hug, just holding him, as if his powers of exorcism could fight against Watanuki’s own sadness, and by extension his own.  
“I come here because I want to,” he said, and that would have to be the best he could do, because it was short and simple and completely, undeniably true.


End file.
